


these halls ain't empty with you

by hulklinging



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Worms, Gen, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kind of a Max Ride AU only no one has wings, also the ship is mostly them holding hands they're kids like I said!, deaths of some doctors/scientists but they're being bad so it's okay, of the human experimentation kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22128337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: Jon doesn't meet someone like him until he's almost twelve years old.Once he does, though, he'll do anything to not let go.(The Magnus Institute's human experiments are not alright. But at least they're not alone.)
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 335





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a warm-up! I have never written these characters before but this idea wouldn't leave me alone! I might come back and write other little pieces of this AU because I have IDEAS...
> 
> Warning, they are kids in this, and they are kids that are being experimented on. I keep it vague but it's not nice.

They keep Jon isolated until he’s almost twelve.

It’s not that he doesn’t see anyone else. He knows every doctor by face if not by name, the ones who talk to him and the ones who give him tests and the ones who come in just to stare and take notes they think he cannot read. But none of these doctors are companions, none are like him. They all wear glasses that hide their eyes away and they always stay behind the glass, and when they have to come to strap his limbs down so they can take his blood or test his pain tolerance they come in with things in their ears, like they’re afraid of what he might say.

He thinks of the sailors, in one of the books he found in the library, stuffing wax in their ears to avoid hearing what they want to hear from sharp-teethed sirens. He wonders if that’s what he is, some kind of siren who’s never seen the sea.

But today they lead him to a room he’s never seen before, and there’s someone there, not in the white coats of the doctors but in the plain black like his own uniform, someone smaller than him (height-wise, at least, because this someone has more easy curves on their bones than Jon has ever managed, he eats and eats but can never seem to be full, never more than skin and bone and hunger), and when Jon walks in the door closes behind him and it’s just him and this new person and the doctors staring from the other side of the glass.

He can feel their eyes on him, and wonders what they’re expecting to happen, if this is a test and if so, if it’s for him or for the other one.

The new person looks up, two warm brown eyes that are strangely hopeful, and Jon stares back with his six eyes, dark enough to get lost in, and when they see him they gasp, flinching back. There’s something strange about their limbs, but Jon puts that aside for now, more interested in how easy it is, to See when there’s nothing in the way.

“Hello,” says Martin, who is from another facility, who is only a few months younger than Jon, who has only just started to show the results of the tests they’ve been running on him since he was a child, which is why they had to transfer him, and he’s scared of Jon but not as scared as he could be (as he _should_ be), and that might be Jon’s favourite thing about him.

“Hello,” Jon says back, his voice raspy with disuse, harsh and strange to his own ears. But Martin smiles, sticks out a hand that only blurs a little as he moves it, and when Jon shakes it he can’t remember ever touching someone by his own choice before.

He rather likes it.

“I’m Jon,” he says, because he remembers that not everyone can See as much as he can.

“Nice to meet you, Jon,” Martin replies. And that’s not really true – there’s nothing nice where they are, nothing nice about knowing that his strange and rather hollow existence is about to be shared with a boy who looks so soft and kind.

Except that Martin had been alone before too, Jon can See that without even looking, and now they are both decidedly less alone. They’re both here, talking, like some characters in a book. That has to count for something, Jon thinks, as he lets Martin introduce himself. Even in the worst of the books, things always get better when the heroes aren’t alone.

* * *

“I’m fine, Jon.”

Jon scowls, crossing his arms to keep from grabbing at Martin’s sleeve and tugging him closer so he can look the other boy over. He knows (he Knows) Martin doesn’t like being fussed over, know it makes the other boy uncomfortable whenever he stares too long, but Jon’s been back from afternoon testing for hours now, and Martin’s never been gone that long before. When Jon gets kept longer than usual, he usually has marks to show for it, burns or cuts that sting for hours, and sometimes take days to fade away completely. Martin doesn’t look like he’s hurt, but he’s not the best at speaking up when he is.

Jon just wants to Look, but his own tests have left his vision spinning, and he thinks if he tries to See anything he might throw up or pass out or something else equally unpleasant, so he’s left with his less-than-adequate pair of eyes and the hope that the stern set of his jaw will encourage Martin to tell the truth.

“You were gone for hours,” he snarls, and then immediately feels guilty when Martin flinches at the tone. “You don’t have to… tell me what happened. But don’t lie.”

“Can’t you just see what happened, anyway?”

Martin knows that Jon can see more than most, although Jon has struggled to explain and Martin hasn’t pushed. His tone has Jon ducking his head, because there’s hurt in Martin’s words that feel sharp, and Jon knows he oversteps, has been trying to not See the other boy’s thoughts as much as he can avoid it. It’s hard, and it makes his eyes sting, but he’s _trying_.

“...No,” he says, because if he tries to hide how his head is spinning, he knows he’ll be caught out. He’s a worse liar than Martin.

Immediately, there are hands on his chin, lifting his head, and all of the edge has gone out of Martin’s voice. Now there’s just a soft concern, as he looks at Jon with his wide eyes that are the closest thing Jon has to anything comforting in this strange life of theirs.

“What happened, Jon? Are you alright?”

“I’m… just tired,” he says. Not quite a lie, but not enough to fool Martin. “It’s like I’ve pulled a muscle, but it’s… in my head. That’s all.” And he reaches a tentative hand out, to grasp at Martin’s forearm so he can’t escape. “What about you?”

Martin presses his lips together. His eyes look paler today, but maybe that’s just a trick of the light. Jon tells himself that’s just a trick of the light.

“I went… somewhere,” he says. “It just took them a while to get me to come back, is all.”

Martin’s skin is cold, even through his sweater. Jon holds him tight, suddenly more afraid than he can ever remember being.

He wants to say so many things, but all the words feel too heavy, and he knows there are people watching, doesn’t want to share this moment with anyone else.

“Keep coming back,” he says instead, and it doesn’t feel like it’s _enough_ , but it’s what he has. “You have to keep coming back. Not for them, but for you.” _For us,_ he doesn’t say. _I don’t remember how to be alone anymore._

“I will, Jon,” Martin says, and closes his eyes, and for a moment they both pretend they are the only two people in the world.

They’re thirteen.

* * *

Jon is fourteen, and he hates Peter Lukas.

He’s the doctor in charge of Martin’s case, and he isn’t here often, but when he is, Martin gets fuzzy around the edges, hard for even Jon to see, and when his feet drag they don’t make a sound. His voice is enough to make Jon’s whole body hum with anger, but Martin’s forbid him from making a scene when Peter comes to collect Martin, ever since the first time, when Jon had grabbed for Peter’s glasses and tried to See something that would make the man stop. He can’t remember much about the aftermath, only Martin’s frightened shouts and an electric shock that left his hand twitching for days. Much worse was the week they kept the two of them separated, Jon left to pace in a smaller room than usual, no access to the library or the small bit of yard they’re allowed to run around in or his one friend. It had only ended after Jon had endured a visit from Elias Bouchard himself.

“This behaviour is beneath you, Jon,” Elias said with a smile that made Jon’s skin crawl. Elias doesn’t wear glasses when talking to Jon, doesn’t cover his ears. Jon thinks if he were stronger, if he were quicker, he could take advantage of that, but so far every time he’s tried he’s been met with a flash of static and a headache that lingers for weeks. It doesn’t stop him from trying, every time the head of the Institute comes to talk with him. “We’re looking at bringing more students here, but how can we, if this is how you’re going to act?”

Elias always did that, promised that more people were coming. But it had taken eleven years for Martin to show up, and they didn’t need others, not really. They were fine, just the two of them, as long as they were allowed to stay together. Jon had said as much, and Elias had just laughed.

“You’d better start minding your manners, then.”

So Jon doesn’t fight back, when Peter Lukas came to call. Not even when Martin returns, his taller frame folding in on itself, impossibly small. Not even when Jon swears that sometimes he can see the outlines of other things through Martin, like something about Peter makes him less _here_ , less _anywhere._

He doesn’t fight back, but he learns to hate, and promises that one day, he’ll make the man answer for every spent tear, every fearful look.

Jon holds Martin close, after he returns to the small room with the twin bunk beds, reminds him that he’s here with words that still never feel like they’re enough, and he _hates._

* * *

“Where are we going?”

Elias doesn’t turn around, but Jon knows he is smiling, can feel it as clearly as he can feel Martin’s hand in his own. They’re being moved, down hallways he can’t remember ever having passed before, away from the rooms that have been their whole world for years.

“Your progress has been… stagnant, of late. We thought a change of scenery would do you good.” And, like he can feel how their grip on each other tightens, he chuckles. “Both of you, for now. Don’t worry.”

There’s voices, leaking through the hallway now. Not the low hum of doctors in conversation, but louder, more discordant. More voices than Jon can ever remember hearing at once.

Elias stops in front of a door, turns to look at both of them, and Jon hates when Elias does this, makes him feel like he’s been flayed open, like Elias knows secrets about himself that even he doesn’t know yet.

“You can’t have thought you were the only ones?” Elias says, and there’s something mocking in his voice. “You’re special, but you’re certainly not _that_ special.”

The door opens, and Jon steps through the doorway, Martin right behind him. The roar of many conversations overlapping dies down almost immediately, as everyone in the room turns to stare at the newcomers.

“I’ll leave you to introduce yourselves,” Elias says, and closes the door tightly behind them. 

Jon should be scared, as he takes in the room, the strange people that fill it up. He is scared, can feel it buzzing under his skin like a promise. But there’s something else, underneath the fear, as the rest of his eyes slide open and he Sees, Sees the anger boiling inside these bodies, these people who have been told they’re monsters but expected to continue to act like they’re people, like they should follow rules that don’t really apply to them.

“There’s so many of us,” Martin breathes, voice stronger than Jon’s heard it in months, and Jon puts a tentative name to this feeling, as he feels the curiosity of everyone in the room settle around him like a cloak (or perhaps a crown).

It’s _hope_. And maybe this is just another trick. Maybe somewhere Elias is watching with a grin, ready to take notes on this, the next stage in his twisted little experiments.

But Elias, for all of his notes and his doctors and his electronic eyes, can’t See like Jon can.

Back in his office, Elias frowns, as the cameras in the classroom flicker, the microphones beginning to buzz with static.

Jon can feel the skin on his face shifting, as more eyes than ever before blink into being. He turns them towards the closest of their new companions, and grins as he recognizes her fear, her hate, and her hope, so similar to his own.

“So,” he says, fifteen and ageless and terrible and true. “What’s your story?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet a few more residents of the Institute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy I guess this is a multi-chaptered fic now!
> 
> Warning for uhhhh more child abuse/neglect and some faceless doctors acting like these kids aren't even kids at all. If it helps, there is also some Violence aimed at these doctors (it's what they deserve).

Jude has always been angry.

If she spared much time to think about her own childhood (she doesn’t), she would imagine she was born angry, screaming as soon as she had enough air in her tiny lungs.

Of course, her earliest memories are of white walls, faceless doctors with protective gloves as they dragged her from her room, pushed her into a temperature-controlled room, turned up the heat.

She’s always loved the heat, liked how it makes her vision swim and her skin sweat, how the surprise makes the doctors’ eyes go wide with awe and fear. They should fear her, barefoot in an inferno, standing even as the room around her begins to warp. As she grows, she learns how to take that heat in, keep it inside her, let it spill out of her whenever she pleases. Her skin melts and then hardens, melts and then hardens, and every time she’s stronger, better,  _ angrier. _

Agnes is not like her. She gets shoes, cute ones with buckles that make a little click-click against the floor. She wears little dresses and has a bow in her hair. She came from Outside, if the whispers are to be believed.

Her voice is steady, even when Jude sneers, makes fun of how doll-like she looks (especially compared to Jude, who burns every pair of shoes she’s given to rubber and scrap, who rips the sleeves off of her shirts because she can’t stand the feeling of the coarse, plain fabric). She doesn’t rise to Jude’s bait, and Jude stomps away, warps the chair she was sitting on because she wants to scare the girl, sitting pretty across from her even as metal screams and bends under her wax hands.

She doesn’t touch her, though. As much as Jude hates this, hates the girl sitting and watching her rage with her big, beautiful eyes, she doesn’t like the doctors and the notes they scribble every time she takes a step towards Agnes, like she’s a lamb they’ve sent in as a sacrifice and they’re just waiting for Jude to rise to the bait.

And then she pushes, with her quiet little voice. Asks Jude if being angry all the time helps. Helps? It’s not about  _ helping _ . It’s that Jude  _ likes _ the anger, likes the power that comes with it, likes that she can make it so hot that even the doctors watching from the next room take a step back.

“But wouldn’t it be easier to let it go, sometimes?” Her legs are perfectly crisscrossed and she doesn’t fidget, even as Jude paces. They don’t get chairs today, because Jude melted the last ones and tried to use them to disable the locks on the doors.

“Look at you. Little songbird, happy with her cage!” Jude looms, and she doesn’t even flinch, even as the air between them shimmers with heat. And Jude’s an animal in a cage, she’s a child with a flamethrower and an anger problem, she’s so  _ pissed _ that she can’t stand looking at Agnes like this, so prim and proper, like they’re at some fucking tea party instead of in some bastard’s torture chamber, so she reaches out, grabs a handful of the girl’s perfect curls and  _ yanks. _

The bow immediately crumbles into ash. Agnes cries out, tries to pull away, grabs Jude’s wrist with her perfect little hands in an effort to get the other girl off of her.

She doesn’t burn. Her hands are soft and warm, when they touch Jude’s skin, sinking a little into Jude’s skin. Jude’s so shocked that she forgets to hold on, lets go and stares at the girl, who has tears in her eyes that swiftly turn to steam as they roll down her face.

“That was  _ mean, _ ” Agnes says, and Jude’s shocked enough to apologize.

She never touches Agnes in anger again, but she does look for any excuse she can to touch the other girl, a hand on her arm or a friendly shove of shoulders. She’s still boiling, still pissed at everything around her, but Agnes now holds a special place in her overheated heart.

If it’s her and Agnes against the whole damn world, she’ll take it. One day, she promises to herself, as she watches Agnes talk about trees and grass and the open sky with a soft longing in her voice, they’ll get back into that world. Even if Jude has to burn down every inch of these hallways to do it.

* * *

Mike can’t remember the last time his feet touched the ground willingly.

They pull him into the testing room every day, tie him down to machines, make him exercise, running on treadmills so his leg muscles remember how to work. He hates it, hates how heavy the weights and straps make him feel, how with his feet on the ground he can’t hear the rushing of the wind as easily as he should.

He snapped once, when he was younger and his control was less steady. Pushed a scientist away when he came to take his vitals, let the vertigo that always hung around him like a cloak expand to cover the doctor as well. He watched as the man gasped for breath, a sick sort of satisfaction in his belly as the man’s eyes fluttered shut and he collapsed.

They made him regret that though, one hundred times over, a month strapped down to his bed, to his chair for meals, until the weight of gravity was physically painful, until he cried about how he’d never do it again, just please, please let him float away again.

“Should have let the other one take him,” he hears one scientist hiss at another, when they finally release him and he retreats to the top corner of his room, shaking as he stretches out his limbs and lets the rushing air fill his lungs once again.

“You’d rather have more of those freaks creeping around?” scoffs the other, and Mike remembers, remembers a maze he knew he was supposed to be able to navigate but not understanding, not understanding how to make the walls move and climbing instead, because there was something chasing him and he was afraid, so afraid. He doesn’t remember what made him slip – could have been a loose stone, could have been the monster reaching for him, could have just been the weaning strength in his child hands – but he remembers the fall, the feeling of weightlessness, the flinch as he readied for the slap of ground that never came.

He’s a bit of a mystery, or so they say. He wasn’t what they wanted, but he doesn’t really care. He hasn’t been forced back into that maze again, and the tests he sat through as a child are mostly just distant memories, healed scars in strange shapes. He’ll take running over that, and the occasional glimpses of sky he gets through the rare window.

“It’s like glorified babysitting at this point,” one doctor grumbles at another, as they fit him to the stationary bike. “I thought the Fairchild group was going to take him off of our hands.”

“They’re waiting until he’s older,” the other doctor answers, and Mike listens and tries to commit it all to memory. “None of the other facilities are set up for the young ones like we are.”

It should scare him, the thought of being sent away from the only place he can really remember. But instead, it’s…  _ exciting.  _ It means he’s not going to be here forever.

Whoever the Fairchilds are, they can’t be worse than this, can they?

Maybe their place will have more windows, or let him go higher than the second floor.

Mike is probably more optimistic than his situation warrants. But it’s hard to be anything but, when he can close his eyes and feel the rush of the freefall, the wind whispering like an old friend into his waiting ears.

* * *

“You must have done something really wrong, to end up here.”

The scientist, who maybe did forget to lock a door last week that let to half of the facility having to go on lockdown and three hospitalizations, flinches at the voice. It’s dark, in this room, and he’s just delivering one of the subject’s lunches, but it’s one he’s never worked with before, and he’s… on edge.

“Just stay back,” he says, one hand on his taser and the other on the covered tray with lunch. He would have just shoved it through the slot in the door, like they do with the most dangerous subjects, but he was told that wouldn’t work for this one, so here he is.

“They only send someone in here when they want to clean up a mess,” says the voice. It’s a strange voice, humming and somehow managing to echo, even in this small room.

He wishes he could turn on the light, but he was told that wouldn’t do either, so he must make do with the triangle of light that spills from the window in the door, closed tightly behind him because he’s not about to make the same mistake twice.

“I’m just here with lunch,” he says, and fuck it. He puts it down on the ground, and it doesn’t make a noise, even though he drops it rather roughly. Instead, it… squelches. Like there’s something soft to catch it.

“Is that so,” says the voice.

“Jane, is it.” He really should pay more attention to the briefs, but there’s so many names and it’s not like they mean anything, it’s not like these are really children, just science experiments, some rich man’s take on an ant farm, and it pays well but not well enough for him to pretend to  _ care. _ “Why don’t you shut up and eat your food, like a good freak?”

He backs up to the door, goes to turn the handle and get out of here. It smells like earth, damp and too close, and he doesn’t care what they say, next time he’s just using the flap.

“We will,” says the voice, much closer than it was before, and he flinches. There’s a noise, some thing (many things) writhing and moving as one, and he thinks  _ fuck it _ , reaches for the light.

There’s a little girl standing in front of him, almost close enough to touch. Her hair is stringy and long, hiding most of her face, but not enough, not nearly enough. She’s covered in  _ holes, _ and in those holes are worms, moving around her and inside of her without a care.

She raises her head, stares at him with one clear eye, and when she smiles it’s an excited smile, reminds him of his niece on Christmas, only she didn’t have quite so many missing teeth.

“But first, can’t you hear them singing?” She asks, and as she does there’s a sharp pain in his leg, like something  _ burrowing _ into him.

He screams, at first. But eventually, he joins in on the song, too.

Jane listens to her children feed, as her tongue plays with another loose tooth. She’s a bit young for all of her grown up teeth to be coming in, but they’ll grow in eventually. Until then, it’s soft foods, and a bit of help.

In this strange, twisting warren of an Institute, there are many strange things. Lots of them have taken up residence in people – that’s what they study, of course. What happens to bodies, when fear is made tangible and introduced too young. Some die. Some warp and change. Some will be very valuable one day, if they can find the right incentive to make them listen, like good toy soldiers.

And then some are like Jane. Better to be studied as quickly as possible, and forgotten after that. 

Deep in the basement, surrounded by thousands of her closest friends, Jane smiles. She knows more than she should, for someone that never gets to leave her room. They can’t keep all of her friends out of everywhere, after all. One or two of them sneak through, now and then. She’s sure folks would pity her, if they knew she was here. But they shouldn’t.

After all, in the whole of this Institute, she’s probably the only soul in it who isn’t lonely.

She’s lucky, like that.

* * *

"Are... are you sure this is a good idea, Elias?"

Elias doesn't care to even look at the man across from him, just continues to read through a report on Jane's latest... acquisition. As expected, not much in the way of surprises there, but he continues to be quietly impressed with the girl's efficiency. Perhaps they will find a use for her after all.

"I don't remember asking for your opinion," he says, and clicks on the next report. This one is longer, but it looks like they finally managed to get Michael back into containment. Only took days longer than it should have. He'll be speaking with that ward's supervisors directly. Jane might end up having a very busy month.

"You never do," says Peter Lukas, and in a man less detached the words might sound like a complaint. But Lukas just sighs it, like it's inevitable, like he always does. If his family didn't pay for most of this Institute, Elias would have banned him from his office years ago.

And from other, more personal places as well. But if he's going to have to continue to work with the man, there might as well be something enjoyable that comes out of it.

"Then what's the issue? They're going to have to learn to play with others sooner or later."

"Some of them will," Lukas says. "Not all of them. I thought you'd been introducing them to each other slowly, when they're compatible. I don't see why we can't just keep doing that."

" _We_ are not doing anything," Elias reminds him. "I am running my Institute, and _you_ are being a nuisance." He allows himself to look up, fix dark eyes on the man in front of him. He's a sight for sore eyes, after six months away doing whatever he does when the world gets too much for him. Stuck on some metal coffin in the ocean, or whatever it is. Elias just wishes he would talk less. "Not everyone thrives on their own like you do, Peter."

"My family isn't paying for you to run a school, Elias."

"See, you're worried about _connection_ ," Elias reaches out to tug at a wrinkle in the other man's collar. "But I like to think of it as something else."

"And what's that?" Lukas's voice is still detached, far away, even as his eyes stare, unable to look away from Elias's sharp grin.

" _Leverage,"_ he says, and if Peter Lukas cared at all about the charges in this building, he would almost feel sorry for them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon takes a statement, and almost makes some friends.

They’re not really allowed to own things, here.

There’s things assigned to them, of course. Bunks and uniforms and a seat at a table and a room specifically made with their abilities in mind. There’s things they can access, a few toys when he was younger, the library when he’s been good, but nothing there is his, either. He doesn’t get to pick what he eats or what he does with his time or even who he spends his time with (although even if he could choose, it would be Martin).

That’s why, as they’re led back through the hallways to their room after meeting the other experiments, Jon is surprised by the weight in his pocket.

It’s something small and unfamiliar, and Jon can’t remember putting anything there.

As the door locks behind the doctor who led them back here (Elias didn’t bother coming to collect them, he rarely shows himself twice in one day), Jon stares at Martin, who stares back, looking more solid than Jon’s ever seen him.

“Jon,” he says, and then stops, words failing him.

He hadn’t talked much with the others, either. Stayed close to Jon, introduced himself with a quiet voice people had to lean forward to catch, and even with his outline more solid than ever the others’ eyes had seemed to slide away from him. Or maybe that was just because of Jon standing next to him, a face full of eyes like stars and a voice that made him seem older than his years.

Jon’s head feels  _ full _ . The gnawing emptiness that always threatened to swallow him up is quiet now, and he needs to talk about this with Martin, needs to know that felt as overwhelming and as important and as… as  _ something _ to the other boy as it had to him.

But he’s afraid to ask, afraid he won’t be able to bite back the power in his voice that pulls answers out of people’s throats without permission.

So instead, he reaches across the gap between them, tugs at Martin’s wrist, guides him to the bottom bunk and pulls the blanket over both of their heads. It’s what they’ve done, when they’ve wanted to block out their situation. When one of them would sneak a book out of the library and they’d stay up, taking turns reading it to each other, Jon’s books a different subject every time and Martin’s rotating through the few books of poetry the library offered.

Jon had picked them up before and dismissed them, but the words took on another life, in Martin’s soft tones, until Jon could almost understand his interest in them, although he always pretended to be put-upon when Martin chose them, because the simple back and forth teasing always made Martin smile.

The last few months, the hours spent with the doctors had lengthened, and Jon knows if he thinks about it he’ll Know exactly how long it’s been since they’ve sat here like this, but he doesn’t want to.

“Jon,” Martin says again, like it's easier to talk when the cameras and their eyes are hidden. Jon closes his own eyes too, in case that helps further. The new ones (three of them, sprouted from forehead and cheek as he had taken in the others) sting, like they’re not supposed to be able to close, but he closes them anyway, lets himself sit in the self-imposed dark as Martin finds what he’s trying to say.

“They’ve been here the whole time,” Martin says at last. “Just… just down the halls.”

They had, yes. Now that Jon knows they’re there, he thinks he could Know exactly how far each of them are, if he reached.

“And they… they knew they weren’t the only ones.”

They had known that, had been unsurprised to meet Jon and Martin. Melanie, the angry girl he had first turned his eyes on, she had said as much. Said that they often saw new faces in the classroom, although few of them were brought there every day. Melanie was small, maybe even shorter than Jon, but the air around her seemed to  _ hum _ with a barely-suppressed violence, and she had bruises on her knuckles and a black eye that looked recent. She’d spit out a short story when Jon had asked, like words cost her and she’d come to collect payment from them as soon as she was able.

She’d spoken of the smell of blood, of not remembering much before she came to the Institute, but knowing she’d been somewhere before, somewhere without white walls and doctors asking after pain levels. She’d talked of being taught how to fight, how to  _ hurt _ , and how she’d make them pay for every cut and bruise, one day. She’d looked in the corner, right at the camera as she’d said it, and Martin had clutched at Jon’s arm when she had.

And after all of that, she’d turned back to Jon and narrowed her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to tell you that,” she’d said, and the humming had grown louder as she clenched her fists.

Jon had fully been prepared to be hit, but a hand had grabbed her shoulder, kept her in place.

“Melanie,” he’d said, voice steady and longsuffering. He was tall and thin, and his dark eyes had met Jon’s without fear or flinching.

Maybe it was just that he had still been distracted by Melanie’s story, but he had gotten nothing from the boy’s eyes, not even a glimpse. It was like when he tried to See things through the shades the doctors always wore, but even… more. Like there was nothing behind those eyes at all.

“Oliver,” Melanie had forced through gritted teeth. “He made me  _ talk. _ ”

“I don’t really think he meant to,” he’d replied. “And I don’t think he’s worth you ending up in isolation for a month again, either.”

That had been enough for Melanie’s fists to unclench, although not enough to erase the scowl from her face.

“Suppose not,” she’d said.

“And it’s not like we’ll be seeing much of him.” Oliver continued to talk like Jon wasn’t there, even as he continued to look directly at him. “They don’t let the ones with physical… abnormalities out to play very often. It’s been months since we’ve seen Michael.”

“That’s because Michael keeps getting out and sending people to hospital,” another person chimed in. She’d been another short girl, close-cropped brown hair and a mouth that doesn’t sit quite right on her face. She’d been lying on top of a few desks that had been pushed together, and when she’d turned her head to look at them, her skin had pulled, like it didn’t quite stretch right.

“All the more reason not to assault the newcomer.”

“Newcomers,” Jon had corrected, almost instinctively. “There’s two of us.”

Martin had done a little wave, muttered a hello that echoed strangely in the silence.

“Right,” Oliver had said. “Newcomers.”

It feels strange, to dislike someone who is closer to what Jon and Martin are than one of their captors, but Jon still finds himself not sure he likes Oliver much, even though the other boy had been nothing but polite.

Maybe Jon just isn’t very good at first impressions. He’s had to make so few, after all.

“No, it appears… it appears they have all been aware of each other for a while.”

They’d all looked to be close to Martin and Jon in age, so he’s not sure why they’d been able to attend class together for going on a few years now while Martin and Jon had been kept secret. Aside from the shared classroom, their lives had sounded similar to their own. Testing, tutoring, limited access to the outside and to the library. None of them knew exactly how many of them there were, but just by listening to the number of names being tossed around, it was a fair few.

“So… why?”

Jon doesn’t have an answer, which is unusual enough for him that he scowls, and then jumps when he feels a hand touch his face, right next to one of his new eyes.

“Jon,” Martin says, voice a whisper that curls around them in their improvised shelter. “I’m… I’m scared.”

Jon lets his eyes open slowly, even as a hand comes up to hold Martin’s own, and sees that fear clear on Martin’s face.

“So am I,” he admits, and shifts, the fear a nervous energy in him he can do nothing to dispel. As he does, he feels the weight in his pocket again, digging into his leg, and lets go of Martin’s hand to reach in and pull whatever it is out.

It’s… a tape recorder. Small enough to fit into his hand, but heavy despite its size. It’s running, and if Jon concentrates he can hear the tape inside it, listening to every word. But unlike the cameras in the rooms, the various microphones that have haunted every testing and interview room he’s occupied in this place, this doesn’t fill him with the feeling of being watched. It feels… comforting, almost.

He’s never seen it before in his life, but it feels like  _ his. _ He’s never felt like something was his before, not unless…

Well. That was a different thing altogether.

“Where did you get that?” Martin asks, staring at the recorder with wide eyes. “Did… did one of them give it to you?”

Jon shakes his head. “I… no. No, and none of them were close enough that they could have… slipped it into my pocket without me noticing, either.”

“Then how did it get there?”

“I don’t know,” Jon says, this time letting the unfamiliar phrase spill out of him like a confession.

And, as Martin and him both stare, the tape recorder stops recording with an almost-cheery ‘click’.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if you like queer podcasts about the end of the world, [I write one of those!](http://crossingwires.blubrry.net/)


End file.
